Various quick cooking pastas are already known. They generally have a thickness of between 0.3 and 0.6 mm, or alternatively have longitudinal and parallel grooves on their surface, which allow the cooking operation to be carried out in a shorter time than that required to carry out the same operation with groove-free products.
EP 0,450,428 thus describes a "spaghetti" which can be cooked in a minimum time of 2 minutes, composed of three lobes forming outer grooves, the lobes, of specific shape, being longitudinal, parallel and angularly equidistant at 120.degree..
Similarly, EP 0,557,139 describes long, thin and tubular pastas capable of being cooked in perforated sachets in a minimum time of 4 min, the cooked pastas not agglomerating because of the presence of striations on their outer surface. The thickness of the wall of these pastas is between 0.4 and 0.6 mm. Furthermore, these striations preferably have a height less than half the thickness of the wall, the said height generally being between 0.2 and 0.3 mm. Finally, these striations may also be between 0.5 and 0.85 mm wide, and have a gap separating two adjacent striations which is between 0.5 and 0.85 mm.
Unfortunately, the texture in the mouth of these cooked tubular pastas is soft, or even flaccid, and is not sufficiently reminiscent of the firm consistency of cooked tubular pastas of the same type, that is to say of striation-free pastas, which, before cooking, have a wall thickness of between 1.1 and 1.6 mm and, once cooked, are of the same appearance on a plate.
Furthermore, these pastas become oval-shaped during their cooking, which is not pleasing to consumers wishing to obtain a pasta of cylindrical appearance, as may be obtained by cooking tubular pastas of the same type, as described above.
The aim of the present invention is to overcome the drawbacks of the prior art.